1. Field of the Invention
The present technology relates to the field of gaming and particularly table gaming, and table gaming systems in which physical wagering elements are placed on the gaming table and a degree of wager values determined.
2. Background of the Art
Tables are often used in casinos to provide wagering games around which multiple players engage in a common wagering event. Typical table wagering events include craps, roulette, blackjack, baccarat and poker variants (e.g., Three-Card Poker™ game, Four-Card Poker™ game, Pai Gow poker, and the like). There can be a significant training period for casino personnel to enable them to play various table games. In many of these games, the dealer physical counts wagers, consults a paytable and physical distributes winnings and/or collects wagers without significant supervision. This control exercised by the dealers can lead to errors in payments or collection of losses, and in some instances has allowed collusion between players and a dealer in which the casino is defrauded. Collusion may be implemented in intentional error in evaluating event outcomes (e.g., rank of hands) or is misreading relative ranks in player versus dealer competitions. Dealers may later claim unintentional error in overpayments or insufficient collection of wagers.
Numerous efforts have been made to provide more automated table gaming systems. It has been thought that by automating delivery of random events (e.g., virtual playing cards, virtual roulette outcomes, virtual dice casting and the like) and allowing for wagering of electronically accounted credits would eliminate fraud and collusion and also reduce personnel at the casino by eliminating dealers and pit bosses and croupier.
The elimination of physical gaming elements (e.g., playing cards and chips and dealers) significantly alters the ambiance of the gaming environment and other aspects of the environment such as player interaction. For example, dealers can add to the comfort of players and provide a more social feel to the gaming environment. Even with people of an age where electronic interaction is the norm, there is greater comfort with a live dealer.
Many variations in degrees of electronic game table control have been attempted. The following identifies some of the significant efforts in providing electronic controls in a table gaming system.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,926,421; 8,348,747; 8,147,316; and 7,758,411 and Published Applications Nos. 20060189365 (PokerTek) describe fully electronic tables with virtual playing cards, electronic wagering and even no live dealer. Multiple players have individual active screens displaying event outcomes and enabling wagers. U.S. Design Pat. D512,466 shows a table layout with individual player panels that display individual player cards and provide individual player inputs on wagers and discards.
Published US Patent Application Documents Nos. 20120157193 and 20100130280 (Arezina) describe a multi-player gaming system that senses multiple simultaneous contacts on a surface of a gaming table, differentiating contacts by different players. Privacy controls selectively display private information visible to only one of the players on or near the display surface of the gaming table. The gaming system also detects physical objects placed on the surface of the gaming table, causing wagering game functions or peripheral functions to be performed as a result of the placement of the object on the display surface.
Other systems emphasize control of playing cards and reading playing card and hand ranks. Published US Patent Application Documents No. 20100019449 (Downs) describes a playing card delivery shoe is used in the play of the casino table card game of baccarat or blackjack or any game where cards are pulled one at a time from the shoe. The apparatus comprises a reader or an imager that scans lines bisecting the image at spaced intervals. The scanning occurs on playing cards in at least the region where suit and rank symbols are provided. The scanner output is a series of voltages that are converted to binary information. This binary information is compared to stored binary information to determine rank and suit. The upper surface of the output end of the shoe contains a partial barrier for cards being scanned. The partial barrier has an elevated surface and limits a size of a pathway so that only one card can be removed at a time. The system may also include a second identification device associated with a second player; a contact sensing device adjacent to the display surface, the contact sensing device detecting first contact data when the first player moves a wager asset across the display surface during the wagering game and associating the first contact data with the first player, the contact sensing device detecting second contact data when the second player subsequently moves the wager asset across the display surface during the wagering game and associating the second contact data with the second player. The system may also determine a transfer of a value of the wager asset from the first player to the second player based on the first and second contact data; and adjust, during the wagering game, credit balances of the first player and the second player to reflect the determined transfer of value. Other aspects and implementations relate to a wagering game system including a multiplayer, multi-touch table on which physical objects can be placed causing wagering game functions or peripheral functions to be performed as a result of the placement of the object, its location or orientation, its shape, its weight, or other characteristics. The physical object may be a player tracking device carried by the player and placed on the wagering game table. The table surface defines a number of regions such that when the player tracking card is placed in a predefined region, a predetermined function is carried out. If the card is placed in a region defined for transferring funds, credits or wagers can be transferred between the card and the table. If the card or object is placed in a region defined for manipulating a virtual camera, turning the object will manipulate the orientation angle of a virtual camera depicting a wagering game image. The physical object may be a blank roulette wheel with unnumbered pockets, whose numbers are projected onto the spinning wheel by a downward-facing projector system that captures the wheel's rotational speed and ball position to create video images that change with the spinning wheel.
Published US Patent Application Documents No. 20110275432 (Lutnick) describes an apparatus comprising: a machine readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions that when executed causes a computing device to perform a method comprising: receiving a first wager by a first player on an outcome of a first poker game; determining a first set of hold cards for the first poker game; presenting the first set of hold cards to the first player; receiving a second wager by the first player on only the flop of the first poker game, in which the second wager may be won and lost independently of the first wager, in which the second wager includes a wager that the flop will include at least one characteristic; determining the flop of the first poker game; presenting the flop to the first player; determining whether the second wager is a winning wager based on whether the flop includes the characteristic; presenting an indication of whether the second wager is a winning wager; determining whether the first wager is a winning wager; and presenting an indication of whether the first wager is a winning wager. A software application may use an API associated with a pressure sensor to retrieve data from the sensor, e.g., data about the weight of chips placed over the sensor.
Published US Patent Application Documents No. 20150087417 (George) describes a system for use in operating gaming tables within a gaming environment is described herein. The system includes a user computing device including a display device, an imaging device for capturing and transmitting video images of an observation area within the gaming environment, and a system controller coupled to the user computing device and the imaging device. The system controller is configured to receive a live video image including a gaming table, display the live video image within a display area on the display device, and display an event area within the display area overlaying a portion of the gaming table image. The system controller detects a triggering condition associated with the event area and responsively generates an event record. The triggering condition includes a change in an image characteristic within the event area. The event record is indicative of game play at the gaming table. The system includes a bet sensor for sensing values of multiple gaming tokens as a bet placement surface configured and oriented to support a stack of gaming tokens thereon; an image sensor located and oriented to capture an image of a lateral side surface of at least one gaming token located on the bet placement surface, wherein the image depicting the lateral side surface is in a radial format; and a processor in communication with the image sensor, the processor configured to acquire image data from the image and analyze the image data to determine a wager value of the at least one token.
Published US Patent Application Document No. 20140370980 (Czyzewski) describes a gaming assemblies with a playing surface including at least one screen display. A system projects visual light on the screen display. A radiation source illuminates objects placed over the screen display. A radiation sensor senses at least a portion of the objects placed over the screen display. A control circuit utilizes data from the radiation sensor. Methods of operating gaming tables and wagering game systems may include such gaming assemblies. A method of operating the gaming table, includes: projecting with a system an image onto a rear side of a screen display positioned proximate a playing surface of a gaming table to enable viewing of the image on a front side of the screen display; illuminating the rear side of the screen display with radiation from a radiation source located at the rear side of the screen display, wherein the screen display is at least partially translucent to the radiation to enable at least a portion of the radiation to reflect from an object placed proximate the front side of the screen display; receiving the at least a portion of reflected radiation at a radiation sensor; generating digital data corresponding to the portion of reflected radiation received at the radiation sensor; and determining that the object is present on the top side of the screen with a control circuit configured to receive the digital data.
Published US Patent Application Document No. 20140349726 (Bucholz) describes a method for presenting the appearance of altered game outcome. In some embodiments, the operations can include presenting, by an electronic wagering game table, a wagering game including a game piece. The operations can also include determining a result for the wagering game. The operations can also include receiving first player input to move the game piece to reveal the result. The operations can also include presenting, on a display device, movement of the game piece. The operations can also include receiving, by the electronic wagering game table, second player input to alter the movement of the game piece, wherein alteration of the movement of the game piece appears to modify the result for the wagering game. The operations can also include presenting, in response to the second player input, altered movement of the game piece and the result for the wagering game.
A series of U.S. patents with a common inventor of Soltys (including by way of non-limiting examples, U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,575,234; 7,510,194; 7,427,234; 7,390,256; 7,317,615; 7,222,852; 7,011,309; 6,991,544; 6,964,612; 6,857,961; 6,758,751; 6,712,696; and 6,688,979) describes various components and methods attempting to configure and establish a more automated gaming table.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,969,802, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/668,980 filed 25 Mar. 2015 (Blazevic) enables a method of reading suit and rank of playing cards on a system for controlled provision of image content of faces of a playing card that has: e) a support surface for playing cards; f) a source of infrared radiation; g) an infrared sensitive camera; and h) a processor. The infrared sensitive camera positioned to capture infrared radiation transmitted through the playing cards and transmit information based on the captured radiation to the processor; and the processor configured to provide suit and rank information of a playing card through which the infrared radiation was transmitted.
Published US Patent Application Document No. 20140347471 (Blazevic) enables methods and systems detect markings or flaws on the backs of playing cards. The method includes: providing ambient radiation at a gaming table and reflecting some of that radiation off a back surface of a playing card; capturing reflected radiation with a radiation sensor; the radiation sensor transmitting signals based on the reflected radiation captured by the radiation sensor; the transmitted signals providing data that contains image data of the back of the playing card; and displaying an image of the back of the playing card based on the image data. The transmitted signals provide image data of the back of the playing card and are also received by a processor that evaluates or compares that data. The system may be an installed casino system (with eye-in-the-sky technology), a portable box, or a component within a shuffling device or dealer shoe. This technology may be incorporated into the table systems of the present technology at various positions.
All documents cited herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety.